THE  TRUSTEES  OF  THE  JOHN  F.  SLATER  FUND 
Occasional  Papers,  No.  22 


EARLY  EFFORT 

FOR 

INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

BY 


Benjamin  Brawley 

Author  of  "A  Social  History  of  the  American  Negro ” 


1923 


EARLY  EFFORT 

FOR 

INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 


Benjamin  Brawley 


Author  of  "A  Social  History  of  the  American  Negro” 


1923 


NOTE 


The  present  paper  endeavors  simply  to  call  to  mind  one  of  the 
half -forgotten  chapters  in  the  history  of  the  education  of  the 
Negro,  and  to  show  that  even  before  the  Civil  War  there  was  em- 
phasis on  industrial  training.  Seldom  does  it  make  any  distinc- 
tion between  industrial  and  vocational  education,  these  terms  by 
popular  usage  being  very  nearly  synonymous.  It  is  not  the  plan 
of  the  series  to  emphasize  footnotes,  and  any  necessary  reference 
is  given  in  connection  with  the  text.  Important  as  sources  are  the 
records  of  the  American  Convention  of  Abolition  Societies,  the 
Minutes  and  Proceedings  of  the  First  Annual  Convention  of  the 
people  of  Color,  Philadelphia,  1831 ; Proceedings  of  the  National 
Convention  of  Colored  People  and  their  Friends,  Troy,  1847; 
Proceedings  of  the  Colored  National  Convention,  Rochester, 
1853,  and  other  such  documents.  A brief  sketch  of  the  Peter- 
boro  Manual  Labor  School  is  accessible  in  the  African  Reposi- 
tory, X,  312-313,  and  the  editorial  from  Frederick  Douglass’  Pa- 
per entitled  “Learn  Trades  or  Starve”  may  be  found  in  the  same 
series,  XXIX,  136-138.  Martin  R.  Delany’s  The  Condition,  Ele- 
vation, Emigration,  and  Destiny  of  the  Colored  People  of  the 
United  States,  Politically  Considered,  Philadelphia,  1852;  Life 
and  Times  of  Frederick  Douglass,  written  by  Himself,  Hart- 
ford, 1882;  and  James  Pyle  Wickersham’s  A History7  of  Edu- 
cation in  Pennsylvania,  Lancaster,  1886,  are  valuable  for  the  pur- 
pose, while  of  more  recent  studies,  the  opening  pages  of  Dr.  W. 
E.  B.  DuBois’s  The  Negro  Artisan,  Atlanta,  1902  (No.  7 of  At- 
lanta University  Publications),  are  suggestive,  and  Dr.  Carter 
G.  Woodson’s  The  Education  of  the  Negro  Prior  to  1861,  New 
York,  1915,  gives  the  subject  special  consideration. 


EARLY  EFFORT  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 


Let  our  young  men  and  young  women  prepare  themselves  for 
usefulness  and  business;  that  the  men  may  enter  into  merchandise, 
trading,  and  other  things  of  importance ; the  young  women  may 
become  teachers  of  various  kinds,  and  otherwise  fill  places  of  use- 
fulness. Parents  must  turn  their  attention  more  to  the  education 
of  their  children.  We  mean,  to  educate  them  for  useful  practical 
business  purposes.  Educate  them  for  the  store  and  counting- 
house — to  do  everyday  practical  business.  Consult  the  children’s 
propensities,  and  direct  their  education  according  to  their  inclina- 
tions. It  may  be  that  there  is  too  great  a desire  on  the  part  of 
parents  to  give  their  children  a professional  education,  before  the 
body  of  the  people  are  ready  for  it.  A people  must  be  a business 
people  and  have  more  to  depend  upon  than  mere  help  in  people’s 
houses  and  hotels,  before  they  are  either  able  to  support  or  capa- 
ble of  properly  appreciating  the  services  of  professional  men 
among  them.  This  has  been  one  of  our  great  mistakes — we  have 
gone  in  advance  of  ourselves.  We  have  commenced  at  the  super- 
structure of  the  building,  instead  of  the  foundation— at  the  top 
instead  of  the  bottom.  We  should  first  be  mechanics  and  com- 
mon tradesmen,  and  professions  as  a matter  of  course  would 
grow  out  of  the  wealth  made  thereby. 

These  words,  that  sound  as  if  they  were  taken  from  one 
of  the  speeches  of  Booker  T.  Washington,  were  not  indeed 
uttered  by  the  distinguished  leader  of  Tukegee.  They  are 
from  a book  published  in  1852,  the  year  of  “Uncle  Tom’s 
Cabin,’’  and  they  were  by  Martin  R.  Delany,  one  of  the 
representative  men  of  the  Negro  people  in  the  middle  of  the 
last  century,  who  was  writing  several  years  before  Mr.  Wash- 
ington was  born. 

It  is  not,  however,  in  the  agitation  just  before  the  Civil 
War  that  we  find  the  beginning  of  the  idea  of  industrial 

education  for  the  Negro.  For  the 
Effort  before  1820.  ultimate  origin  we  have  to  go  back 

even  to  the  years  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  to  the  laws  governing  apprenticeship  in  the  colonies. 
In  1727,  for  instance,  in  Virginia,  it  was  ordered  that  David 
James,  a free  Negro  boy,  should  be  bound  to  one  James  Isdel, 
who  was  to  “teach  him  to  read  the  Bible  distinctly,  also  the 
trade  of  a .gunsmith.”  Education  in  these  early  years,  how- 
ever, was  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  English  Church,  which 


4 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


naturally  was  primarily  concerned  with  religious  instruction ; 
and  such  a case  as  that  just  cited  had  only  slight  bearing  on 
the  later  idea  of  industrial  training. 

Even  at  this  time  the  destitute  condition  of  many  free 
Negroes,  and  their  difficulty  in  adjusting  themselves  to  the 
situation  in  which  they  were  placed,  excited  the  solicitude  of 
those  persons  who  were  disposed  to  be  friendly;  and  George 
Whitefield  in  1740  thought  of  an  institution  for  those  in 
Pennsylvania.  A generation  later  the  active  mind  of  Thomas 
Jefferson  debated  this  as  many  other  problems,  and  in  the 
hands  of  this  patriot  as  executor  Thaddeus  Kosciuszko  left 
considerable  property  for  the  improvement  of  those  whose 
unfortunate  situation  had  touched  his  heart,  the  same  to  be 
of  service  “in  giving  them  an  education  in  trades  or  other- 
wise.” In  this,  however,  as  in  so  many  other  matters  that 
have  affected  the  welfare  of  humanity,  it  remained  for  the 
Quakers  to  take  the  most  definite  steps  forward.  After 
1770  the  Friends  were  systematic  in  their  efforts  for  the 
education  of  the  Negro.  By  1773  they  had  in  Philadelphia 
a brick  schoolhouse  for  the  purpose,  and  in  the  course  of  their 
training  they  placed  emphasis  on  sewing  and  other  simple 
arts.  By  1782  the  philanthropist,  Anthony  Benezet,  who  had 
long  been  interested  in  education  and  social  betterment,  was 
formally  in  charge  of  the  school,  and  at  his  death  he  left  a 
fortune  “to  hire  and  employ  a religious-minded  person  or 
persons,  to  teach  a number  of  Negro,  mulatto,  or  Indian 
children,  to  read,  write,  arithmetic,  plain  accounts,  needle 
work,  etc.”  By  this  time,  however,  under  the  influence  of 
the  humanitarian  impulses  of  the  Revolutionary  era,  the 
state  Abolition  Societies  had  come  into  being,  and  the  dele- 
gates from  nine  such  organizations  formed  on  January  1, 
1794,  the  American  Convention  of  Abolition  Societies.  The 
different  branches  were  interested  not  only  in  emancipation; 
each  also  reported  from  time  to  time  on  the  property  and  em- 
ployment as  well  as  the  conduct  of  the  freedmen  in  its 
province.  The  Convention  also  prepared  addresses  to  “the 
Free  Africans  and  other  Free  People  of  Color  in  the  United 
States.”  Typical  was  that  of  1796,  which  advised  among 
other  things  as  follows: 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


5 


Teach  your  children  useful  trades,  or  to  labor  with  their  hands 
in  cultivating  the  earth.  These  employments  are  favorable  to 
health  and  virtue.  In  the  choice  of  masters,  who  are  to  instruct 
them  in  the  above  branches  of  business,  prefer  those  who  will 
work  with  them ; by  this  means  they  will  acquire  habits  of  indus- 
try, and  be  better  preserved  from  vice  than  if  they  worked  alone, 
or  under  the  eye  of  persons  less  interested  in  their  welfare. 

The  solicitude  that  was  beginning  to  be  manifested  for  the 
highest  social  welfare  of  the  Negro  was  largely  in  response 

to  an  economic  situation  that  was 
Economic  Situation,  rapidly  developing  in  the  country. 

As  far  back  as  1708  white  mechanics 
in  Pennsylvania  had  protested  against  the  hiring  out  of  Negro 
mechanics,  and  in  1722  there  had  been  further  protest.  In 
the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  tendency  towards 
restriction  was  even  more  pronounced.  It  was  increasingly 
becoming  evident  that  in  the  history  of  the  Negro  in  America 
slavery  was  only  an  incident — a very  grave  and  important 
incident,  but  still  an  incident — and  that  the  final  question  was 
that  of  his  actual  place  in  the  body  politic.  Here  was  a 
problem  that  in  the  untimate  analysis  reached  far  beyond 
an  artificial  system  of  bondage.  In  Ohio  about  1820  Me- 
chanics’ Societies  combined  against  Negroes,  and  a master 
mechanic  was  publicly  tried  for  assisting  a young  Negro  to 
learn  a trade.  When  moreover  a Negro  cabinet-maker  pur- 
chased his  freedom  in  Kentucky  and  went  to  Cincinnati,  he 
found  great  difficulty  in  getting  employment.  An  English- 
man finally  gave  him  work,  but  the  other  employees  struck. 
Such  was  the  situation  that  the  Negro  had  to  face  throughout 
the  North  and  the  growing  Central  West.  Individuals  of 
unusual  ambition  and  energy  sometimes  found  a way  out  in 
spite  of  the  handicap,  but  the  actual  condition  of  many  of 
the  freedmen  left  much  to  be  desired.  In  nothing  was  the 
idealism  of  the  Abolitionists  more  manifest  than  this,  that 
in  the  face  of  the  unusually  difficult  situation  they  still  in- 
sisted on  fundamental  principles.  Those  who  were  most 
actively  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  Negro  also  had  the 
good  sense  to  see  that  many  of  the  freedmen  were  quite  un- 
trained for  any  place  in  a fast  growing  industrial  community. 


6 Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 

In  the  South  labor  was  almost  wholly  in  the  hands  of 
slaves,  though  in  some  of  the  older  and  larger  cities  the  F.  M. 
C.’s  (Free  Men  of  Color)  prospered,  and  individual  masons 
or  carpenters  were  sometimes  very  efficient.  A great  planta- 
tion moreover  had  men  working  in  several  different  trades. 
In  course  of,  time,  however,  this  section  faced  a great 
dilemma.  Slave  labor  and  skilled  labor  were  essentially  con- 
tradictory terms.  A man  could  go  only  a little  way  in  in- 
telligence and  skill  without  desiring  to  be  his  own  master. 
Men  could  hardly  be  increasingly  efficient  and  at  the  same 
time  satisfied  in  a state  of  bondage.  After  1831  acts  against 
the  education  of  the  Negro  became  more  repressive.  Thus 
Georgia  in  1833  enacted  that  no  one  should  permit  a Negro 
to  transact  business  for  him  in  writing,  and  in  1845  said  that 
slaves  and  free  Negroes  could  not  take  contracts  to  build  or 
repair  houses. 

To  the  difficulty  that  the  Negro  mechanic  faced,  especially 
in  the  North,  was  now  added  another  force  that  did  not  tend 
to  emphasize  industrial  training  or 
Negro  Advance  achievement,  and  this  was  found  in  the 
and  Opinion.  Negro’s  own  ambition  for  higher  things. 

About  1840  there  was  still  question  as  to 
the  intellectual  capacity  of  the  Negro  student,  and  this  doubt 
became  a challenge  to  earnest  young  men  to  measure  them- 
selves by  the  highest  possible  standards.  These  standards 
were  those  of  the  classical  college.  It  was  a day  when  the 
dignity  of  labor  was  not  yet  fully  realized,  and  when  modern 
methods  of,  scientific  agriculture  had  yet  a long  way  to  go. 
While  then  there  was  as  yet  only  the  beginning  of  such  a 
racial  consciousness  as  meant  emphasis  on  Negro  enterprise, 
there  was  growing  up  a small  but  important  group  of  edu- 
cated men  who  often  found  it  difficult  or  even  impossible  to 
find  positions  at  once  congenial  and  financially  profitable. 
Some  of  these  men  were  trained  for  service  in  Liberia. 
Others  who  may  not  have  contemplated  such  service  also  felt 
that  their  best  opportunity  was  in  the  new  country  in  the 
ancient  fatherland.  Thus  early  were  there  the  opposing 
ideals  of  industrial  and  liberal  education,  and  the  conflict  was 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


7 


only  less  strong  than  that  sixty  years  later.  Not  every  one 
could  see  that  the  Negro  people,  like  any  other  people,  needed 
both  kinds  of  training,  and  those  who  advocated  training  for 
different  industrial  fields  had  an  uphill  fight.  There  was  yet 
another  matter.  Even  then  earnest  and  patriotic  Negro  men 
were  divided  on  the  great  question  of  emphasizing  racial 
ideals  or  of  losing  racial  consciousness  in  the  larger  life  of 
the  nation.  The  National  Anti-Slavery  Standard  said:  “We 
oppose  all  exclusive  action  on  the  part  of  the  colored  people, 
except  where  the  clearest  necessity  demands  it;”  and 
Frederick  Douglass,  who  so  ardently  favored  industrial  train- 
ing, was  one  of  those  who  advocated  the  national  rather  than 
the  racial  ideal.  It  is  accordingly  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
in  all  the  currents  and  counter-currents  of  the  day  even  honest 
men  were  sometimes  uncertain  as  to  the  best  course  to  pursue. 
The  hard  facts  of  the  economic  situation  forced  attention, 
however,  and  in  the  whole  generation  just  before  the  Civil 
War  there  was  effort  for  training  in  the  trades  as  well  as  en- 
deavor for  advancement  in  more  liberal  or  classical  culture. 

Effort  began  to  be  definite  in  the  formal  convention  of 
Negro  men  assembled  in  Philadelphia  in  June,  1831.  To 
this  came  delegates  from  five  states. 
Proposed  Manual  In  the  course  of  its  sessions  the 
Labor  College.  convention  was  visited  by  Benjamin 
Lundy,  of  Washington,  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  of  Boston,  Arthur  Tappan,  of  New  York,  Thomas 
Shipley  and  Charles  Pierce,  of  Philadelphia,  and  Rev.  S.  S. 
Jocelyn,  of  New  Haven.  Jocelyn,  Tappan,  and  Garrison  ad- 
dressed the  convention  with  reference  to  a proposed  college 
in  New  Haven,  toward  the  $20,000  expense  of  which  one  in- 
dividual (Tappan  himself)  had  subscribed  $1,000,  with  the 
understanding  that  the  remaining  $19,000  be  raised  within 
a year.  A committee  on  the  same  said  in  its  report 

That  a plan  had  been  submitted  to  them  by  the  above-named 
gentlemen,  for  the  liberal  education  of  Young  Men  of  Color,  on 
the  Manual-Labor  system,  all  of  which  they  respectfully  submit 
to  the  consideration  of  the  Convention  . . . The  plan  pro- 

posed is,  that  a College  be  established  at  New  Haven,  Conn.,  as 


8 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


soon  as  $20,000  are  obtained,  and  to  be  on  the  Manual-Labor  sys- 
tem, by  which,  in  connection  with  a scientific  education,  they  may 
also  obtain  a useful  Mechanical  or  Agricultural  profession. 

The  report  was  unanimously  adopted.  In  favor  of  New 
Haven  as  the  place  of  location  seven  reasons  were  given,  as 
follows:  The  site  was  healthy  and  beautiful;  the  inhabitants 

were  friendly,  pious,  generous,  and  humane;  the  laws  were 
salutary  and  protecting  to  all,  without  regard  to  complexion; 
boarding  was  cheap  and  provisions  were  good ; the  situation 
was  as  central  as  any  other  that  could  be  obtained  with  the 
same  advantages;  the  town  of  New  Haven  carried  on  an  ex- 
tensive West  India  trade,  and  many  of  the  wealthy  colored 
residents  in  the  Islands  would,  no  doubt,  send  their  sons  there 
to  be  educated,  thus  forming  a fresh  tie  of  friendship,  which 
would  be  productive  of  much  good  in  the  end;  and  finally,  the 
literary  and  scientific  character  of  New  Haven  rendered  it 
a desirable  place  for  the  location  of  the  college. 

As  to  all  of  this  the  advocates  of.  the  plan  were  soon  unde- 
ceived. The  inhabitants  of  New  Haven  may  have  been  pious, 
but  they  were  certainly  not  generous  or  friendly.  The 
citizens  at  a public  meeting  declared  themselves  as  absolutely 
opposed  to  the  project  and  forced  it  to  be  abandoned.  After 
a year  or  two  some  effort  was  made  to  transfer  the  money  on 
hand  to  an  academy  built  by  subscription  in  Canaan,  N.  H., 
in  1834,  but  at  this  place  the  townspeople  demolished  the 
edifice  that  was  erected.  In  the  conventions  of  Negro  men, 
however,  the  idea  persistently  obtained,  and  at  the  Troy  meet- 
ing in  1847  the  Committee  on  Education,  composed  of 
Alexander  Crummell,  James  McCune  Smith,  and  P.  G. 
Smith,  reported  in  favor  of  “a  collegiate  institution,  on  the 
manual  labor  plan,”  and  a committee  of  twenty-five  was  ap- 
pointed to  carry  the  idea  into  effect.  Again  in  1853,  at 
Rochester,  there  was  renewed  interest  in  an  industrial  college; 
steps  were  taken  for  the  registry  of  Negro  mechanics  and 
artisans  who  were  in  search  of  employment,  and  of  the  names 
of  persons  who  were  willing  to  give  them  work;  and  there 
was  also  a committee  on  historical  records  and  statistics  that 
was  not  only  to  compile  studies  in  Negro  biography  but  also 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


9 


reply  to  attacks  on  the  race.  Too  much  emphasis  can  not  be 
placed  upon  the  fact  that  Frederick  Douglass,  James  W.  C. 
Pennington,  James  McCune  Smith,  Alexander  Crummell, 
Martin  R.  Delany,  William  C.  Nell,  and  other  representative 
men  of  this  period  were  by  no  means  impractical  theorists 
but  men  who  were  scientifically  approaching  the  problem  of 
their  people  and  who  debated  intelligently  practically  every 
great  question  that  faces  the  race  to-day.  They  not  only 
anticipated  the  ideas  of  industrial  education  and  of  the 
National  Urban  League  of  the  present  day,  but  they  also  en- 
deavored to  lay  firmly  the  foundations  of  racial  self-respect. 
Of  them  all.  in  connection  with  the  present  subject,  Frederick 
Douglass  calls  for  very  special  mention. 

A few  months  after  the  appearance  of  “Uncle  Tom’s 
Cabin,"  and  while  that  book  was  still  enjoying  its  first  great 

success,  Frederick  Douglass  was 
Frederick  Douglass,  invited  by  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 

Stowe  to  confer  with  her  about  a plan 
which  she  was  considering  for  the  advancement  of  the  free 
colored  people  of  the  country.  She  was  just  about  to  go  to 
England,  she  said,  and  expected  to  have  some  money  placed 
in  her  hands.  This  she  thought  to  use  in  erecting  a monu- 
ment to  “Uncle  Tom’s  Cabin,”  and  she  was  wondering 
whether  the  best  thing  would  be  an  educational  institution 
pure  and  simple  or  a school  more  specifically  industrial. 
Douglass  expressed  himself  as  opposed  to  an  industrial  school 
that  was  merely  theoretical  and  as  desiring  actual  workshops. 
The  colored  people,  he  said,  needed  money;  they  were  shut 
out  from  all  workshops  and  were  only  barbers,  waiters,  and 
coachmen.  Thev  “needed  more  to  learn  how  to  make  a good 
living  than  to  learn  Latin  and  Greek.”  Mrs.  Stowe  approved 
this  idea  and  asked  Douglass  for  a formal  letter  that  she 
might  use  as  occasion  demanded.  This  Douglass  wrote  from 
Rochester  under  date  March  8,  1853.  After  discussing  the 
general  difficulties  of  the  situation,  and  how  it  was  that  some 
representative  men  had  been  forced  to  leave  the  country,  he 
passed  to  concrete  suggestion:  and  his  statement  is  so  clear 
and  strong  that  we  give  it  at  length  in  his  own  words : 


10 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


The  plan  which  I humbly  submit  is  the  establishment  in  Ro- 
chester, N.  Y.,  or  in  some  other  part  of  the  United  States  equally 
favorable  to  such  an  enterprise,  of  an  Industrial  College  in  which 
shall  be  taught  several  important  branches  of  the  mechanic  arts. 
This  college  to  be  open  to  colored  youth.  I will  pass  over  the  de- 
tails of  such  an  institution  as  I propose.  Never  having  had  a 
day’s  schooling  in  all  my  life  I may  not  be  expected  to  map  out 
the  details  of  a plan  so  comprehensive  as  that  involved  in  the  idea 
of  a college.  I repeat,  then,  I leave  the  organization  and  adminis- 
tration to  the  superior  wisdom  of  yourself  and  the  friends  who 
second  your  noble  efforts.  The  argument  in  favor  of  an  Indus- 
trial College  (a  college  to  be  conducted  by  the  best  men,  and  the 
best  workmen  which  the  mechanic  arts  can  afford ; a college 
where  colored  youth  can  be  instructed  to  use  their  hands,  as  well 
as  their  heads ; where  they  can  be  put  in  possession  of  the  means 
of  getting  a living  whether  their  lot  in  after  life  may  be  cast 
among  civilized  or  uncivilized  men ; whether  they  choose  to  stay 
here,  or  prefer  to  return  to  the  land  of  their  fathers)  is  briefly 
this:  Prejudice  against  the  free  colored  people  in  the  United 

States  has  shown  itself  nowhere  so  invincible  as  among  mechan- 
ics. The  farmer  and  the  professional  man  cherish  no  feeling  so 
bitter  as  that  cherished  by  these.  The  latter  would  starve  us  out 
of  the  country  entirely.  At  this  moment  I can  more  easily  get 
my  son  into  a lawyer’s  office  to  study  law  than  I can  into  a black- 
smith’s shop  to  blow  the  bellows  and  to  wield  the  sledge-hammer. 
Denied  the  means  of  learning  useful  trades  we  are  pressed  into 
the  narrowest  limits  to  obtain  a livelihood.  In  times  past  we 
have  been  the  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  Ameri- 
can society,  and  we  once  enjoyed  a monopoly  in  menial  employ- 
ments, but  this  is  so  no  longer.  Even  these  employments  are  rap- 
idly passing  away  out  of  our  hands.  The  fact  is  (every  day  be- 
gins with  the  lesson,  and  ends  with  the  lesson)  that  colored  men 
must  learn  trades ; must  find  new  employments ; new  modes  of 
usefulness  to  society,  or  that  they  must  decay  under  the  pressing 
want  to  which  their  condition  is  rapidly  bringing  them. 

We  must  become  mechanics ; we  must  build  as  well  as  live  in 
houses ; we  must  make  as  well  as  use  furniture ; we  must  con- 
struct bridges  as  well  as  pass  over  them,  before  we  can  properly 
live  or  be  respected  by  our  fellowmen.  We  need  mechanics  as 
well  as  ministers.  We  need  workers  in  iron,  clay,  and  leather. 
We  have  orators,  authors,  and  other  professional  men,  but  these 
reach  only  a certain  class,  and  get  respect  for  our  race  in  certain 
select  circles.  To  live  here  as  we  ought  we  must  fasten  ourselves 
to  our  countrymen  through  their  every  day  cardinal  wants.  We 
must  not  only  be  able  to  black  boots,  but  to  make  them.  At  pres- 
ent we  are  unknown  in  the  northern  states  as  mechanics.  We 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


11 


give  no  proof  of  genius  or  skill  at  the  county,  state,  or  national 
fairs.  We  are  unknown  at  any  of  the  great  exhibitions  of  the  in- 
dustry of  our  fellowcitizens,  and  being  unknown  we  are  uncon- 
sidered. 

Douglass  communicated  his  views  to  other  representative 
men,  especially  at  the  convention  in  Rochester,  1853,  which 
he  termed  “the  largest  and  most  enlightened  colored  conven- 
tion that,  up  to  that  time,  had  ever  assembled  in  this  country.” 
The  plan  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  however,  had  unfortunate  develop- 
ment. While  in  England  this  writer  was  criticised  for  rais- 
ing money,  and  when  she  returned  she  announced  that  she 
had  given  up  the  idea  of  a school.  Douglass  himself  could 
not  see  the  reason  for  this  and  not  unnaturally  felt  that  in  the 
whole  matter  he  had  been  placed  in  an  “awkward  position.” 
He  never  ceased  to  feel  the  need  for  vocational  training, 
however,  and  one  of  the  most  characteristic  of  his  utterances 
that  have  come  down  to  us  was  the  editorial  in  his  own  paper 
entitled  “Learn  Trades  or  Starve,”  in  which  he  said:  “The 

American  Colonization  Society  tells  you  to  go  to  Liberia. 
Mr.  Bibb  tells  you  to  go  to  Canada.  Others  tell  you  to  go  to 
school.  We  tell  you  to  go  to  work ; and  to  work  you  must  go 
or  die.  Men  are  not  valued  in  this  country,  or  in  any  country, 
for  what  they  arc ; they  are  valued  for  what  they  can  do.” 

While  in  conventions  and  elsewhere  manual  labor  training 
for  Negro  young  men  and  women  was  being  discussed,  there 
were  at  least  a few  attempts  to  give 
Peterboro  Manual  concrete  expression  to  the  idea.  One 
Labor  School.  of  the  most  interesting  of  these  was  the 
“Manual  Labor  School  for  Young  Men 
of  Color”  started  in  Peterboro,  Madison  County,  N.  Y.,  in 
May,  1834.  This  was  simply  a part  of  the  general  plan  of 
Gerrit  Smith  for  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  free 
Negroes  in  the  North.  This  remarkable  man,  whose  interests 
ranged  all  the  way  from  theology  and  temperance  to  politics 
and  railroads,  and  whose  great  wealth  was  most  generously 
distributed,  had  in  mind  an  institution  for  which  he  laid  down 
regulations  that  interestingly  anticipate  those  of  institutions 
of  a later  day.  The  school  was  open  to  young  men  from 


12  Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 

fourteen  to  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  each  was  informed 
before  he  came  that  he  would  need  a supply  of  “good  coarse 
clothing"  for  a year  or  two,  and  five  or  ten  dollars  above  the 
expenses  of  his  journey.  The  students  were  supplied  with 
books  and  board,  and  living  was  very  plain.  Every  boy  was 
required  to  work  four  hours  a day,  and  it  was  estimated  that 
this  student  labor  was  worth  slightly  more  than  three  cents 
an  hour,  or  twelve  and  a half  cents  for  the  four  hours. 
Neither  tea  nor  coffee  was  used,  and  the  students  slept  on 
straw  mattresses.  They  did  their  own  cooking  and  washing 
under  the  supervision  of  a capable  woman  of  the  race,  one 
who  had  “lived  a great  many  years  in  the  family  of  the  late 
Governor  Trumbull.’’  Such  sendee  counted  on  the  required 
work.  Each  student  promised  to  abstain  from  intoxicants, 
including  cider  and  strong  beer,  and  tobacco  in  ever}-  form. 
There  was  a reading  table  well  supplied  with  abolition  and 
colonization  literature,  and  when  a young  man  left  the  in- 
stitution he  was  free  to  go  wherever  seemed  best.  Such  was 
the  plan.  Just  how  well  it  was  carried  out  it  is  difficult  to 
say.  The  matter  is  practically  unmentioned  in  the  biography 
of  Smith  (that  by  Frothingham) . At  the  beginning,  we  may 
observe,  there  was  provision  for  eighteen  young  men;  within 
two  months  seven  were  in  attendance,  and  it  was  expected 
that  the  place  would  soon  be  full. 

Other  schools  were  started  with  similar  purpose;  but  it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  even  in  institutions  that  offered  some 
simple  industries,  vocational  training  was  not 
Other  always  the  prime  object.  Sometimes  Negro 

Institutions,  students  were  admitted  to  white  institutions, 
and  there  was  also  a vanishing  line  between 
the  industrial  school  and  the  one  for  orphan  children  that 
required  several  hours  of  work.  In  1842  those  Negroes  who 
had  made  their  way  to  Canada  called  a convention  to  advise 
as  to  the  expenditure  of  $1,500  that  had  been  given  for  their 
welfare.  It  was  decided  to  found  a grammar  school  but  one 
“where  the  boys  could  be  taught  the  practice  of  some  mechanic 
art,  and  the  girls  could  be  instructed  in  those  domestic  arts 
which  are  the  proper  occupation  and  ornament  of  their  sex." 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


13 


Thus  was  organized  the  British  and  American  Manual  Labor 
Institute  of  the  Colored  Settlements  in  Upper  Canada.  In 
this  enterprise  the  leading  spirits  were  Rev.  Hiram  Wilson 
and  Josiah  Henson,  the  famous  prototype  of  Uncle  Tom; 
and  for  about  fifteen  years  the  school  thus  founded  did  much 
to  cultivate  self-reliance  on  the  part  of  those  who  attended. 

We  return  to  the  efforts  of  the  Quakers  in  Pennsylvania.  In 
3832  Richard  Humphreys  left  $10,000  to  establish  a school  for 
instructing  “descendants  of  the  African  race  in  school  learning 
in  the  various  branches  of  the  mechanical  arts  and  trades  and 
agriculture.”  In  1839  the  Society  of  Friends  formed  an  as- 
sociation to  carry  out  this  provision,  and  it  was  felt  that  the 
best  way  to  be  of  service  to  the  Negroes  was  “to  extend  to 
them  the  benefits  of  a good  education,  and  to  instruct  them 
in  the  knowledge  of  some  useful  trade  or  business,  whereby 
they  may  be  enabled  to  obtain  a comfortable  livelihood  by 
their  own  industry.”  They  bought  a piece  of  land  in 
Philadelphia  County  and  began  instruction  in  farming  and 
shoemaking.  The  industrial  effort  was  not  very  successful, 
however,  and  seven  years  afterwards  the  trustees  sold  the 
farm,  and  the  school  developed  into  the  later  well  known 
Institute  for  Colored  Youth. 

In  the  meantime  Augustus  Wattles,  who  had  been  in- 
terested in  the  education  of  the  freedmen  in  Ohio,  met  in 
Philadelphia  the  trustees  of  the  fund  of  Samuel  Emlen,  of 
New  Jersey,  who  in  his  will  had  set  aside  $20,000  “for  the 
support  and  education  in  school  learning  and  mechanic  arts 
and  agriculture  of  boys  of  African  and  Indian  descent  whose 
parents  would  give  them  to  the  Institute.”  Emlen  Institute 
became  one  of  those  schools  or  homes  that  more  and  more 
emphasized  the  care  and  training  of  orphans.  Beginning  in 
Ohio  in  1843,  it  was  removed  to  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania, 
in  1858,  removed  again  in  1873  to  a site  not  far  away,  and 
in  1878  had  sixteen  boys  in  attendance. 

Thus,  although  institutions  did  not  always  develop  as  it 
was  intended  that  they  should,  even  a generation  before  the 
Civil  War  there  were  concrete  and  clearly  defined  plans  for 
the  industrial  training  of  Negro  young  people  in  the  United 
States. 


14 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


Such  efforts  as  these  give  only  a faint  idea  of  the  interest 
that  there  was  in  the  subject  of  industrial  or  vocational 
training  in  the  years  before  the  Civil  War. 
From  Promise  In  the  course  of  the  great  struggle  itself 
to  Fulfilment.  came  the  rapid  growth  of  schools  for  the 
freedmen  throughout  the  South,  and  in  a 
few  years  the  great  development  of  Hampton  Institute  under 
General  Armstrong.  Several  years  were  yet  to  pass,  how- 
ever, before  the  idea  of  industrial  training  was  to  take  firm 
hold  of  the  popular  mind.  In  1882  was  established  the  Slater 
Fund,  whose  “singularly  wise  administration”  was  some 
years  ago  remarked  by  Dr.  DuBois  as  “perhaps  the  greatest 
single  impulse  toward  the  economic  emancipation  of  the 
Negro.”  In  1884  Henry  Edwards  Brown,  secretary  of  the 
International  Committee  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  As- 
sociation, circulated  an  interesting  letter  that  looked  toward 
the  founding  of  an  industrial  school  for  Negro  young  men 
and  women  in  the  far  South.  It  was  not  then  realized  that 
the  institution  was  already  in  existence;  but  of  course 
Tuskegee  in  1884  was  by  no  means  the  place  that  it  became 
after  Mr.  Washington’s  epoch-making  speech  in  1895. 


Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education 


15 


Q€CA£IONx\]> PAPERS  PUBLI&J3EU>SY--TH-ECri>^TBeO"e-g 
THE  JOHN  F.  SLATER  FUND. 


1.  Documents  Relating  to  the  Origin  and  Work  of  the  Slater  Trus- 

tees, 1894. 

2.  A Brief  Memoir  of  the  Life  of  John  F.  Slater,  by  Rev.  S.  H.  Howe, 

D.  D.,  1894. 

3.  Education  of  the  Negroes  Since  1860,  by  J.  L.  M.,  Curry,  LL.  D., 

1894. 

4.  Statistics  of  the  Negroes  in  the  United  States,  by  Henry  Gannett, 

of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey,  1894. 

5.  Difficulties,  Complications,  and  Limitations  Connected  with  the 

Education  of  the  Negro,  by  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  LL.  D.,  1895. 

6.  Occupations  of  the  Negroes,  by  Henry  Gannett,  of  the  United 

States  Geological  Survey,  1895. 

7.  The  Negroes  and  the  Atlanta  Exposition,  by  Alice  M.  Bacon,  of 

the  Hampton  Normal  and  Industrial  Institute,  Virginia,  1896. 

8.  Report  of  the  Fifth  Tuskegee  Negro  Conference,  by  John  Quincy 

Johnson,  1896. 

9.  A Report  Concerning  the  Colored  Women  of  the  South,  by  Mrs. 

E.  C.  Hobson  and  Mrs.  C.  E.  Hopkins,  1896. 

10.  A Study  in  Black  and  White,  by  Daniel  C.  Gilman,  1897. 

11.  The  South  and  the  Negro,  by  Bishop  Charles  B.  Galloway,  of  the 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  1904. 

12.  Report  of  the  Society  of  the  Southern  Industrial  Classes,  Norfolk, 

Va.,  1907. 

13.  Report  on  Negro  Universities  in  the  South,  by  W.  T.  B.  Williams, 

1913. 

14.  County  Teacher  Training  Schools  for  Negroes,  1913. 

15.  Duplication  of  Schools  for  Negro  Youths,  by  W.  T.  B.  Williams, 

1914. 

16.  Sketch  of  Bishop  Atticus  G.  Haygood,  by  Rev.  G.  B.  Winton, 

D.  D.,  1915. 

17.  Memorial  Addresses  in  Honor  of  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington,  1916. 

18.  Suggested  Course  for  County  Training  Schools,  1917. 

^9.  Southern  Women  and  Racial  Adjustment,  by  L.  H.  Hammond, 
1917;  2nd  ed.,  1920. 

20.  Reference  List  of  Southern  Colored  Schools,  1918;  2nd  ed.,  1921. 
Report  on  Negro  Universities  and  Colleges,  by  W.  T.  B.  Wil- 
liams. 1922. 

^^2.  Early  Effort  for  Industrial  Education,  by  Benjamin  Brawley,  1923. 


